Hong Kíng-Bûn on Dr. Richard Dawkins, “Cultural Christianity,” and Atheism

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/06/29

Hong Kíng-Bûn, the founder of the Taiwanese Humanist Institute and Humanistic Pastafarianism in Taiwan, dedicates his efforts to civil defense and the revitalization of the Taiwanese language. Drawing inspiration from Greco-Roman and non-Abrahamic traditions, they firmly believe that humanism should form the bedrock for constructing stable family values and fostering a fertile society.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, it’s been a while since our last interview. How are you doing?

Hong Kíng-Bûn: Good.

Jacobsen: So, we previously talked about Richard Dawkins and his cultural Christianity. We also discussed Taiwan and the rising tensions with larger powerful countries, raising issues for Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and many smaller states. Regarding Richard Dawkins and his claims about being a “cultural Christian,” what are your thoughts on it? What are some of your issues with it?

Kíng-Bûn: When Dawkins uses the term “cultural Christian,” it makes him seem contradictory and embarrassing. I try my best to stay polite.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] You’re talking to me, not to him. That’s fine. You can say whatever you want.

Kíng-Bûn: He was on a channel where the host asked him how he feels about the presence of Islamic culture, like their holidays and mosques developing in the United Kingdom. He said he was really sad about it. He loves church hymns and beautiful churches and likes that people are still maintaining Christian culture. So, he said he’s a cultural Christian, even if he doesn’t believe in the theology or God’s existence. We all know that his life’s work has been to criticize Christianity and promote atheism, urging people not to believe in Christianity anymore for decades.

Jacobsen: Longer than you and I have been around combined.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, of course. I started watching his videos in high school. He’s a qualified guy with powerful speeches, but using the term “cultural Christian” doesn’t make sense. Christian culture is for believers; it’s developed and maintained by those who believe in God. You can’t just maintain it culturally without believing. I don’t know how much Richard Dawkins donates to the church to maintain their work. If you promote atheism and people stop believing, you can’t expect them to maintain Christian culture. Society needs culture to survive. If you don’t believe in Christianity, your culture will shift to something else. You might convert to Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, or any other religion, or you might not believe in anything but still engage in some spiritual practices. You won’t maintain Christian culture anymore. [Laughing] So, it’s contradictory for Dawkins to feel sad about that.

His concern seems to be about the impact of immigrant cultures on mainstream culture in the United Kingdom. But he uses religion and the term “cultural Christian” possibly for marketing reasons. He’s successful in that sense; his videos spread widely in Christian media, but you don’t see much from an SCS (secular, skeptical, humanist) perspective. It’s rare to find an SCS YouTube talk about this.

Jacobsen: If we invert the situation, in some alternate universe, and take a prominent Christian like Alvin Plantinga or William Lane Craig claiming, “I’m a Christian but I’m a cultural atheist,” it wouldn’t make sense. It’s about both your point and his orientation. Christianity is a comprehensive life system, whereas atheism is simply a rejection of belief in God. Atheism may have an online culture but not a traditional culture with iconography, music, and art.

Kíng-Bûn: Let’s talk about tradition.

Jacobsen: Sure. If Dawkins argues against the core of Christianity—the theology and belief in the resurrection—it’s contradictory because it’s all part of the same package deal. He’s separating theology from culture, but you’re saying it’s all the same.

Kíng-Bûn: What is tradition? Historically, tradition always changes over time.

Jacobsen: So, what is tradition?

Kíng-Bûn: It’s a German term: Zeitgeist.

Jacobsen: Zeitgeist? Okay, I know that one.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, it’s popular. Tradition is the Zeitgeist of your grandparents.

Jacobsen: Why is that?

Kíng-Bûn: How do you know what tradition is? Your parents told you. And their parents told them. So, tradition is the Zeitgeist of your grandparents. Most societies are patriarchal, so fathers play a key role. Tradition involves maintaining beliefs and ideologies through generations. For an ideology to become tradition, it must last at least two generations. Tradition is progressive but evolves through generations. Many values and beliefs don’t last beyond one generation. It’s like evolution; the world selects ideologies that survive through generations, which become traditions. So, why can’t atheists construct their own tradition? They still need to reproduce and inherit past generations’ practices. If all atheists come from other religions, it means atheism isn’t self-sustaining.

Jacobsen: By that definition, every person is an atheist in theology but culturally tied to the religion they left. Someone from a Muslim home who becomes an atheist is a cultural Muslim. Someone from a Jewish home is a cultural Jew. By your definition of tradition, atheists don’t have an atheist culture per se but a culture linked to their religious heritage.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, but their own belief and cultural religion can’t continue through generations. Their children might believe in God. It’s easy to revert to previous beliefs through generations.

Jacobsen: For many, traditions they partake in are hollow. They might not believe in Mass but still attend Catholic services, or they might not practice Zakat but go to the mosque with family. Atheism is a null state regarding the core of religion when religion makes truth claims.

Kíng-Bûn: Christians celebrate Christmas, originally a pagan holiday. They converted it to Christmas. They did that during the Roman Empire, so why can’t atheists reinterpret holidays?

Jacobsen: Some do. There are celebrations like HumanLight. Some create ethical systems like ethical societies, secular humanists, Unitarian Universalists, or even parody religions like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They don’t believe in a God but have a cultural system. Your point about tradition and culture is valid. Atheism doesn’t have a comprehensive culture like religions. Even new religions like Scientology offer a complete package, Atheism’s claim to culture falls apart when considering tradition as a multi-generational concept.

Kíng-Bûn: Society is about having a constructive mindset to solve problems in daily life. That’s why, in the channel where Richard Dawkins was interviewed, he challenged the host by asking, “Do you still believe in the virgin birth?” The host wisely replied, “I’d rather hope that this is true, even if I know it’s not possible biologically.” That’s the point. She talked about her visit to Jerusalem and the holy sense she felt there. You feel the power of something. We are not teenagers who have left Christianity or other religions just for fun, just to criticize, or just for the theological stories. It’s nonsensical for our daily lives. Decisions like these should be made for a better impact on your life. This is how an adult practices. For me, Dawkins seemed very naive in that interview. For example, I established Pastafarianism in Taiwan.

Jacobsen: That’s right, you did. That was the first establishment. That’s an achievement.

Kíng-Bûn: In our group, we align with the LGBTQ community. Why? Because they are oppressed by Christianity the most, even though Christianity is only 5% of the population in Taiwan.

Jacobsen: In their local community, they were oppressed.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes. They still have influence in the media and politics. The influence is huge. After losing the suit in the high court for gay marriage, the American church came to Taiwan to teach our church people to oppose gay marriage.

Jacobsen: If you look at the cases in Ghana, the vice president of Humanists International has noted that one of the most regressive anti-LGBTI laws in the world is in Ghana. It’s supported by white American Evangelicals to suppress people politically. They believe that gaining inroads in Ghana will influence the rest of Africa by setting a precedent. I think a similar case happened in the small portion of Taiwan that is Christian. I agree with Lee Kuan Yew that Americans will never get rid of their zeal and evangelizing spirit. They want to evangelize to the world, not just about Christianity but about Americanism. The Christian element is a big part of that, as seen in Taiwan and elsewhere. Founding Pastafarianism is an achievement, but you’re also setting a new generational culture with a parody religion, making fun of traditional religion. Also, Dawkins focuses a lot on Islam. Why Islam rather than Hinduism or Sikhism or some other faith? What are your thoughts?

Kíng-Bûn: I don’t live in the United Kingdom, so I don’t know how those different religions are practiced there. But I can simplify his concerns about the cultural impact of immigrants. Taiwan has a very fraternity in the local population, so we import workers. They come to work for several years and then leave. The government wants their labor and skills but not their families. The fraternity in the Philippines and Indonesia is much larger than ours, so to maintain our social insurance, we will soon need to open the gates to let them in. We are not a society that believes in Abrahamic religions; we are more pagan.

Jacobsen: Pagans, like nature worship.

Kíng-Bûn: We worship many gods, thousands of them, and that’s how we create a very friendly environment for atheists. People just think you haven’t found your god yet, so they give you space. They won’t say you will go to hell or that you are a bad person. In the believer’s mindset, it’s normal for people, especially youth, not to believe in God or practice any faith. But once Christians from the Philippines and Muslims from Indonesia settle in Taiwan, I believe cultural conflicts and crises will emerge. I understand Dawkins’ concerns, but I think he faces difficulties because Christianity is so strongly tied to British culture.

Jacobsen: In the House of Lords, they have bishops. Humanists always point out that they should get rid of them.

Kíng-Bûn: There isn’t much British culture without Christianity. In Taiwan, we have several beliefs and gods, and our culture is not always related to specific temples or gods. Most of it is ancestor worship or ghost worship, which are more related to worldviews or views on reincarnation. It’s not specifically tied to a single god, temple, or religion; it’s more fluid. We don’t need to tie Taiwanese culture to a specific faith. You can believe in Christianity and still be Taiwanese; that’s how our churches operate.

Let me show you an ancestor tablet. Okay, I sent a picture of an ancestor tablet.

Jacobsen: Oh, I see.

Kíng-Bûn: The shape mimics a male stick. [Laughing] It names your ancestors on it, so you can feel the vibe related to tribalism and ancient worship concepts. Decades ago, Christians burned these, calling it idolatry. They don’t do that anymore because people are now sensitive about it. You burn your ancestors’ tablet.

Jacobsen: Nietzsche had a basic phrase, something to the effect: It’s not the love of Christians that prevents you from that, but the impotence of their love. [Ed. ‘It is not their love for men, rather it is the impotence of their love that hinders Christians of today from burning us.’]

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, Taiwanese Christians will still keep it, but not worship it. They give it respect, influenced by our traditional religion, but they are still Christians.

Jacobsen: There was something mentioned earlier about smaller states being pressured by larger states. The issue is that larger states can impose their will on smaller states. This concerns me with Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and in your case, Taiwan and Mainland China. Are there any religious or cultural efforts imposed on Taiwan by outside forces that aim to reduce Taiwanese culture, similar to the reduction in the number of Taiwanese speakers over time?

Kíng-Bûn: It’s all different in different issues. For geopolitics, like you mentioned with Israel and Ukraine, China (PRC) uses religion to influence Taiwan. They use Daoism, interacting with temples, putting people and money into them to bribe and influence our policy. They do this, but people often think Daoism is controlled by China because it’s a Chinese-rooted culture. However, our research shows that the Protestant Church in Taiwan is the most influenced by the Chinese government. The researcher, a Christian, a Catholic, admits this.

Jacobsen: [Laughs] What’s their name? How do you spell that?

Kíng-Bûn: Eoiss.

Jacobsen: Oh.

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, but I will give you the link. It’s all in Mandarin. He doesn’t want to reveal his real identity. Our Daoist temples have strong traditions, making it difficult to infiltrate. But many Mandarin-speaking Protestant churches are new and lack traditional structure, making them easy to influence. They can receive donations to support anti-gay marriage policies against the current ruling party. That’s how they do these things.

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